Wednesday, 31 December 2014

For the
first time since January 31, 2012, when the French Rafale fighter was chosen as
the future medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) for the Indian Air Force
(IAF), a top Indian official has admitted serious problems in negotiating the
purchase with French vendor, Dassault.

Speaking to
the media on Tuesday evening, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said there were
“complications” in the negotiations that have already dragged on for almost
three years, with the French side reluctant to meet commitments that the IAF
had specified in the tender.

Parrikar
did not reveal details. Business Standard has reported earlier on Dassault’s
unwillingness to assume responsibility for the production of Rafales by
Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, which the tender mandated. HAL is to build 108 Rafales
in India with technology transferred from Dassault and its sub-vendors.

Ominously
for Dassault, Parrikar said that additional Sukhoi-30MKI fighters, which HAL
builds in Nashik, were adequate for the IAF in case it was decided not to
procure the Rafale.

The IAF currently
plans to have 272 Su-30MKI fighters by about 2018. HAL’s Nashik production line
is building the fighter at Rs 358 crore each, less than half the estimated cost
of buying the Rafale.

“The
Su-30MKI is an adequate aircraft for meeting the air force’s needs”, said
Parrikar.

Earlier
this month, Parrikar had assured his French counterpart, Jean-Yves Le Drian,
during the latter’s visit to New Delhi on December 1, that Rafale negotiations
would be placed on a “fast track”, according to MoD officials.

The defence
minister revealed on Tuesday that the French defence minister “has (committed) to
send an empowered person to negotiate after New Year.”

According
to the terms of the MMRCA tender, 18 of the 126 fighters being bought would be
supplied fully built abroad, with the remaining 108 manufactured by HAL. The
cost of the project, originally sanctioned at Rs 42,000 crore, has now crossed
Rs 100,000 crore, according to expert estimates.

Border infrastructure

Signalling
a major thrust on building roads along the 4,057-kilometre Line of Actual Control
(LAC) between India and China, the defence minister announced that the Border
Roads Organisation (BRO), which has been plagued by infighting between its
civil and military personnel, would come directly under the MoD.

“BRO is
being delinked from the Ministry of Surface Transport. It will be entirely defence
controlled and defence financed. We are (also) considering transferring of more
than 6,000-7,000 kilometres of roads, which are not in sensitive areas, to the National
Highways (Authority of India)”, said Parrikar.

Weighing in
against the principle of “dual command”, the defence minister said: “Ministry
of Surface Transport was their (BRO’s) administrative department and defence
was their [operational department]. So obviously there was confusion, when you
have two masters, you don’t get work output.”

Parrikar
confirmed that the proposal had been discussed with Minister for Surface
Transport, Nitin Gadkari, and both had agreed that, from the next budget
onwards, BRO would come under the MoD.

The BRO was
charged with building 61 Indo-China Border Roads (ICBRs), of total length 3410
kilometres, by 2012.Of these, it has
completed only 17 roads, of length 590 kilometres, the defence minister told
parliament on December 12.

Parrikar
explained that high technology, especially the practice of tunnelling with rock
boring machines, was essential for building roads in difficult terrain, for
which the private sector needed to be involved. “The way it is being cut today,
I don’t think we will complete (our target) even in 15 years. If the target is
5 years, we will have to use technology”, he said.

The defence
minister also revealed that he was working with the railways minister, Suresh
Prabhu, to expand rail connectivity across Arunachal Pradesh. “We have decided
to improve the railway connectivity as well as the road connectivity. We will
finalise things in the days ahead”, he said.

The defence
minister told parliament on December 12 that four strategic railway lines have
been prioritised for survey.

Arms agents permitted

Parrikar reiterated
his intention to permit foreign arms companies to station “representatives or
technical consultants” in India, reversing a ban on “agents” that had been
imposed after the Bofors gun scandal of 1987-88. This had been reported earlier
by Business Standard (December 13, “Parrikar
likely to allow arms agents, impose steep fines for wrongdoing”).

The defence
minister downplayed reports of increased Pakistani firing on the Line of
Control (LoC), stating, “Across the LoC, (firing) incidents have reduced during
2014. There were increasing incidents on the International Border, but they
have also fallen during the last two months compared to this time last year.”

Even so,
Parrikar emphasised the army’s muscular posture, saying his orders were” “Don’t
hesitate; react appropriately and without holding yourself back. We don’t (start
firing). But if there is something going on from the other side we retaliate
with double the energy.”

Monday, 29 December 2014

For the
first time since the private sector was allowed into defence production in
2001, a defence minister has met face-to-face with private sector defence CEOs
to discuss the role they could play in boosting defence production in India.

On Saturday,
at the Taj Vivanta Hotel in Goa, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar --- alone
except for a personal secretary --- met for three hours with captains of
private defence industry. Not one of his ministry’s five secretary-level
officers was in attendance. Nor was anyone from the public sector invited.

Major
issues discussed included the “Make” category of procurement; ways of
harnessing Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs); and boosting defence
exports.

The
industrialists who flew down to Goa for the meeting included Baba Kalyani from
the Kalyani Group, and the defence vertical chiefs of Bharat Forge; Larsen
& Toubro; Tata Advanced Systems; Godrej & Boyce; Ashok Leyland; Punj
Lloyd, Alpha Design Technologies; Zen Technologies; Data Patterns and Pipavav
Shipyard. Local Goa group, Dempo, also sent a representative. The Confederation
of Indian Industry (CII) organised the meeting.

Business
Standard has been briefed on the meeting by three CEOs who attended. All of
them agree that, after thirteen years of operating from the sidelines under three
successive defence ministers --- George Fernandes of the National Democratic
Alliance (NDA); and Pranab Mukherjee and AK Antony of the United Progressive
Alliance (UPA) --- Parrikar’s readiness to interact face-to-face is an encouraging
indicator of change.

“We spoke
frankly and Mr Parrikar listened carefully, interjected frequently and took notes
during the meeting. For the first time in a decade, we (private sector defence
companies) believe we will be allowed to use our capabilities in the defence of
India”, says HS Shankar, who attended the meeting as chief of defence
electronics company Alpha Design Technologies.

A central
issue discussed was the “Make” procedure, which was devised to allow private
companies a larger role in designing and building defence equipment, with the
ministry of defence (MoD) reimbursing 80 per cent of the development cost.
However, since the “Make” procedure was instituted in 2008, not a single
project in this category has been successfully floated by the MoD.

A new
“Make” procedure has been in the pipeline for years, but there is little
consensus on its form, even amongst private industry. Parrikar indicated the
new procedure would be finalised by end-January.

Industry
representatives suggested that no programmes be tendered under the “Make”
procedure until there was clarity on its final form. They cautioned that it was
very different from the prime minister’s (PM’s) “Make in India” initiative,
which is about boosting manufacture. The “Make” procedure, in contrast, is
about developing design capability and intellectual property (IP) in the
country.

Parrikar requested
CII for a note that explained IP issues, including the critical issue of who
should own the IP generated through the “Make” procedure --- the company that
generated it, or the MoD which paid for it.

Zen
Technologies proposed that the MoD not accept low indigenous content of 30-50
per cent, which the current Defence Procurement Procedure mandates in certain
categories of procurement. Instead, 90 per cent indigenisation should be aimed
at. Parrikar requested for a paper on a new procurement category, called “Pure
Indian”, which would demand near-total indigenisation.

Parrikar
proposed an assured R&D work share for MSMEs under the new “Make”
procedure. He mooted a national registry of defence MSMEs, based on capability
criteria. Once registered, an MSME should be supported with exemptions from
burdens like Earnest Money for defence tendering.

Parrikar
highlighted the need to boost defence exports, a requirement the PM has also
stressed. He proposed issuing a negative list and positive defence export list.
While no exports would be permitted to countries on the negative list, those on
the latter would require no export clearances.

Also
discussed was the relative success of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)
compared to the Defence R&D Organisation (DRDO). Many ascribed ISRO’s
success to the autonomy that came with being directly under the PM. The defence
minister revealed that he had ordered greater financial powers to the DRDO’s
departmental heads. Each of these Director Generals, who oversee specific
technology areas like aerospace, missiles and underwater systems, will now be empowered
to spend up to Rs 150 crore. The onus of delivering usable defence equipment
would be squarely on their shoulders.

Saturday, 27 December 2014

A Tejas light fighter comes in to land at Uttarlai air base, Rajasthan

By Ajai
Shukla

Business Standard, 27th Dec 14

Parliament’s
Standing Committee on Defence has sharply criticised the meagre allocations of
funds to the Indian Air Force (IAF), given its long shopping list of aircraft
needed for boosting air power.

The government
has allocated the IAF less than half the capital budget the service had
requested for this year, with no funding for purchases like the Rafale fighter
and modernisation of Jaguar fighters and IAF bases.

The
committee notes that “…as per (Defence) Ministry’s own submission the impact of
shortfall in Capital Budget will lead to slowdown of modernization, delay in
induction of new capabilities and resultant asymmetry in capability with respect
to threat perception… This appears to demonstrate a lackadaisical approach of
the Ministry.”

The
parliamentary panel reveals in its “Fourth Report on Demands for Grants
(2014-15)”, which was tabled on December 22, that the IAF had projected a
requirement of Rs 62,408 crore for capital purchases this year. Against that, it
was allocated only Rs 33,711 crore, half its request.

“The
Committee are baffled at such a meagre allocation as Air Force has a long list
of projects planned for induction during the year 2014-15…” the committee
notes, listing out the Rafale fighter; the planned fitment of high-power
engines into the fleet of 100-plus Jaguar fighters; a range of new helicopters,
and an on-going project to modernise all the IAF’s air bases.

While the
IAF’s capital allocation of Rs 33,711 crore amounts to over one-third of the
total defence capital budget, most of this --- Rs 31,056 crore --- is pre-committed
for “Committed Liabilities”, i.e. instalments due on purchases made in earlier
years (many defence buys are paid over a duration of 7-10 years).

For “New
Schemes”, the IAF has been allocated just Rs 2,645 crore, barely one-fifth of
the Rs 12,395 crore that the air force said was required.

The first
instalment of a fresh defence contract, payable at the time of signing, is
usually 15 per cent of the contract value. In projecting a demand of Rs 12,395
crore for “New Schemes”, the IAF was effectively demanding the wherewithal to
sign fresh contracts worth Rs 82,633 crore. That means, with Rs 12,395 crore
paid out this year as the signing amount, liabilities worth Rs 70,238 crore
would be carried forward as “Committed Liabilities” payable from future
budgets.

Instead, by
allocating Rs 2,645 crore for “New Schemes”, the government has allocated the
IAF the funds to sign fresh contracts worth about Rs 17,633 crore. After the
down payment this year, about Rs 15,000 crore would be carried forward to the
coming years.

The
committee is as scathing about the slashing of the IAF’s revenue budget.
Against the IAF’s projection of Rs 27,073 crore, the government allocated just
Rs 20,507 crore, a shortfall of Rs 6,566 crore. Since the government could only
marginally bring down the IAF’s projected payroll of Rs 11,032 crore (by Rs 702
crore), deep cuts came in the non-salary expenditure, which includes cost of
fuel, transport and training. Under this head, the IAF’s request for Rs 16,642
crore was pared by Rs 5,765 crore to Rs 10,877 crore.

Terming the
scenario “dismal”, the Committee recommends that additional revenue funding be
provided, especially for aviation fuel, “since scarcity for fuel will adversely
impact training facilities and the Committee are apprehensive that any
compromise in training will be detrimental for the safety of our pilots. The
Committee wants to be intimated about the same.”

The Committee
has also strongly backed the IAF’s repeated pleas to boost its strength of
fighter squadrons. The IAF has told the panel that, against its sanctioned
strength of 42 squadrons (each is authorised 21 fighter aircraft), there are
just 25 squadrons available today, with another 14 squadrons of MiG-21s and
MiG-27s retiring by 2024.

The report says
the “country’s security requirements are being compromised by ignoring
consistently widening gap between sanctioned and existing strengths. The
Committee desire that concrete and prompt steps be initiated expeditiously to
induct sufficient number of functional platforms and a status report in this
regard be submitted to the Committee.”

The
committee is headed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member and former
Uttarakhand chief minister, Major General BC Khanduri (Retired). In the committee
is an unusually heavyweight set of 21 Lok Sabha and 10 Rajya Sabha members.
These include prominent BJP MPs like Murli Manohar Joshi; Hindutva champions
Vinay Katiyar and Tarun Vijay; pro-military activist, Rajeev Chandrashekhar; former
prime minister HD Deve Gowda; former Congress chief minister Captain Amarinder
Singh and cabinet minister Ambika Soni.

Friday, 26 December 2014

A major
trend in India’s defence spending has been the navy’s growing share, which has risen
from 4 per cent of the defence allocation in the early 1960s to a high of 18.12
per cent in 2012-13.

This is
seen worldwide as evidence of an increasingly muscular profile in the Indian
Ocean region, where India will not just protect its 7,517 kilometres of
coastline and 1,197 islands, but function as the premier maritime power that secures
freedom of navigation over 6,000 kilometres of international sea lines of
communication (SLOCs) in its vicinity.

Parliament’s
Standing Committee on Defence fears this signal is being diluted. This year, the
navy was allocated just 15.72 per cent of the defence budget, down from 16.79
per cent last year. That amounts to Rs 37,808 crore (USD 5.95 billion).

Unprecedentedly,
the parliament committee has ordered the government to allocate more funds to
the navy.

The
committee says the alarming rise in accidents, including the 2013 sinking of
INS Sindhurakshak --- a frontline Russian Kilo-class submarine --- indicates
the navy needs more money for purchasing modern equipment, maintaining it
properly and training seamen to the required level of skill.

Citing the
“spurt in accidents”, the committee notes: “in most of the cases of accidents,
the cause is either material failure or human error. This implies that either
the equipment and machinery acquired are substandard or there are inadequacies
in training. The Committee feel that the inadequate funding will further
aggravate the condition of Indian Navy and lead to compromises in operational
preparedness. Therefore, it is the absolute necessity to allocate ample funds
to Navy under intimation to this Committee (sic).”

The panel
reveals that the navy is significantly understrength. The report says: “In
2012, [the defence ministry] approved 198 ships and submarines for Indian Navy.
The present force level is 127 ships, 15 submarines and 236 aircraft. There are
presently 14 conventional submarines (including Sindhurakshak) in the Indian
Navy. Most conventional submarines are over 20 years old and are reaching the
end of their service life.”

Worryingly,
this year’s capital allocations, i.e. the funding for new equipment purchases,
will be mostly expended on “Committed Liabilities”, i.e. on annual instalments for
equipment procured during previous years. Of the total capital allocation of Rs
23,832 crore, about Rs 17,313 will be expended on committed liabilities,
leaving just Rs 4,599 crore for new purchases.

The
committee sharply criticises large cost overruns on major warship projects. It
notes that Project 15A, for building three Kolkata-class destroyers, was sanctioned
at Rs 3,580 crore, but eventually cost Rs 11,662 crore, more than thrice what
was initially envisaged. In Project 28, which involves building four
Kamorta-class anti-submarine corvettes, the sanctioned cost of Rs 3,051 crore rose
to Rs 7,852 crore. The largest overrun was for the Indigenous Aircraft Carrier,
INS Vikrant, which went up almost six-fold from the sanctioned Rs 3,261 crore
to Rs 19,341 crore.

A key cause
of these large overruns has been the MoD’s budgeting methodology, which
involves sanctioning a project at a notional (invariably undervalued) cost and
then arriving at a more realistic figure once the first ship of that project is
physically built.

The
committee has noted that the project cost for INS Vikrant was grossly
underestimated in 2002. In somewhat garbled prose, the report says: “Cost
overrun was mainly due to reasons of cost estimation for [cabinet] sanction in
2002 at a time when (the vessel’s) ‘form & fit’ was still emerging; limited
information on many Aircraft Carrier specific equipment & material due to
inadequate domain knowledge; Equipment costs, emerging technological advances
and new generation equipments in IAC (sic).”

The MoD has
been asked to resolve this issue and apprise the committee.

Wednesday, 24 December 2014

Parliament’s
Standing Committee on Defence has lambasted the government for having failed to
provide the army with funds and badly needed equipment. There is also sharp
criticism at the ministry of defence (MoD) for having refused to provide the
committee with information it has requested.

In a report
entitled “Demands for Grants (2014-15) --- Army”, one of five it presented in
the Lok Sabha on Monday, the Committee paints a bleak picture of an army
without adequate artillery guns, tanks, missiles and basic combat essentials
like bullet-proof jackets and ammunition.

The
committee, headed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member and former Uttarakhand
chief minister, Major General BC Khanduri (Retired), notes: “The Committee find
the entire scenario very discouraging and do not find any reason with the
Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Finance for curtailment in the budget
of the Army… Therefore, the Committee recommend that the Ministry of Defence
should allocate the amount to the Army as per its projections to buy new weapon
system and creating infrastructure for the Army so as to keep its fighting
spirit high and ready to move in any eventuality (sic).”

The MoD has
long regarded meetings of the Standing Committee as a chore, keeping senior bureaucrats
away from their desks. Unlike standing committees in, say, the United States,
which are sworn to secrecy and presented with classified information, the MoD routinely
up-ends the notion of parliamentary oversight and cites “national security” to
avoid answering awkward questions.

The current
Committee tersely states that it is “dismayed over the fact that while replying
the Ministry tried to conceal even the overt information, which is unacceptable
to them (the MPs).”

On the continuing
shortfall of 186,138 bullet proof jackets that were sanctioned in 2009, the
report notes: “The Committee are perturbed over the fact that such an important
life saving device has not been purchased by the Ministry jeopardizing the
lives of thousands of soldiers… They are not happy over the state of affairs in
the Ministry where such an important purchase could not be materialized even
after a lapse of five years.”

While India
has fought shy of officially naming China as the reason for raising a new army
Mountain Strike Corps (MSC) of 60,000 soldiers, the Committee leaves little to
doubt. The report disguises China as “@@@”, but the context makes things clear.

It quotes
the Vice Chief of Army Staff (VCAS), who briefed the Committee that the
decision to raise an MSC “started with our analysis of the threat perception
after 15 years and in that analysis it was predicted that the way @@@ has been
getting more aggressive in resolving its disputes with neighbours, especially,
in view of what we have seen with its maritime disputes in the South China Sea,
it was our attempt to make sure that we are fully prepared to deal with this
threat if at any time @@@ decides to raise the ante and get more aggressive (sic)”.

The report
reveals that two mountain divisions (about 35,000 soldiers) were raised in the 11th
Plan to plug gaps in our defences; while the MSC will now be raised.

The committee
sharply criticises the defence ministry for making neither funds nor equipment
available for the new MSC. The VCAS is quoted saying: “we have dipped into our
War Wastage Reserves (WWR)”, which is actually equipment kept in reserve for
wartime.

While the
MSC will cost Rs 67,000 crore over a period of seven years, the VCAS has told
the Standing Committee that no additional money has been allocated for this. He
says: “We are not getting additional budget. A certain amount of about Rs.
5,000 crore has been set aside saying that this is meant for the Mountain
Corps. But this is not over and above the budget. So, we need money over and
above the budget if we are able to make up all the stores and weapons which we
have pulled out from the War Wastage Reserves for the initial raisings”.

Criticising
this, the Committee notes: “It seems very impractical and incongruous that a
new Corps is being raised with war wastage reserves. The Committee feel that
the Ministry should do away with its proclivity of ad-hoc planning and provide
adequate budgetary support commensurate with the requirement of Mountain Strike
Corps (sic).

Tuesday, 23 December 2014

Major General Rizwan Akhtar, the chief of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence

By Ajai Shukla

Business Standard, 23rd Dec 2014

After the sickening murder of over
130 schoolchildren in Peshawar last Tuesday by Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)
terrorists, India has sceptically noted Pakistani declarations that terrorism
must be fought without discriminating between “good terrorists” and “bad
terrorists”. The crucial question is: will Pakistani anger be visited only on
the TTP? Or on all groups in the lawless Federally Administered Tribal Area
(FATA) along the Afghanistan border, including the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani
Network, which the Pakistani military’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has
long supported? Or will the crackdown eventually encompass Punjab-based jihadis like the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT)
that are “strategic assets” of the Pakistan Army, meant to bleed India. In
other words, will only “anti-Pakistan” groups be in the cross hairs, or will
“anti-India” groups be targeted too?

Few Indians believe that Pakistan is
about to shut down its long-running sub-conventional war against India. Even so,
it would be strategically unwise to entirely rule out that the Pakistan army might
gradually realise what the world already sees: that growing operational,
intelligence and ideological linkages between radical Islamist groups make it
impossible for Pakistan to defeat terrorism in FATA without simultaneously
addressing it in Punjab.

Without doubt, the sceptics have
powerful arguments, which are centred on the sub-continental colloquialism: a
dog’s tail can never be straightened. Yet, while Indian TV anchors and analysts
gracelessly repeated Hilary Clinton’s 2011 adage --- “you can't keep snakes in your
backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbours” --- Prime Minister
Narendra Modi’s compassionate statement of solidarity to Pakistan left the door
open for cooperation, should the Pakistani establishment choose to correct
course.

So far, the naysayers are being
proven right. The Pakistani military has targeted only anti-Pakistan militants in
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and FATA. Visiting frontline units in Khyber on Friday, Pakistan’s
army chief, General Raheel Sharif, exhorted them to finish off “the rebels”,
clearly distinguishing between the rebel TTP and the obedient, pro-Pakistan
LeT.

Sharif also read from a well-worn
playbook by dashing off to Kabul the day after the Peshawar killings to urge
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to act jointly against militants “operating from
Afghanistan”. This perpetuated the Pakistani narrative that foreign countries
are responsible for all militancy in Pakistan. Singing chorus was LeT chief,
Hafiz Saeed, who told baying crowds that India was masterminding and
bankrolling the TTP and was behind the Peshawar killings.

On Sunday, Imran Khan’s jihad-friendly party, the Pakistan
Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI), spoke out against the jihadis,
condemning “the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and all other terror groups
that have unleashed their brutality on the people of Pakistan”. The subtext:
“Why don’t you stick to unleashing brutality on the people of India? We don’t
have a problem with that.”

If this needed unambiguous, official
endorsement, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s closest foreign policy advisor,
Sartaj Aziz, provided that in an interview with the BBC last month, in which he
said Pakistan would not target militant groups that “did not pose a threat to
the state”. Islamabad claims he was quoted out of context; most of the world
believes Aziz was being unusually truthful.

What of Pakistan’s actions since
the Peshawar horror? Press reports suggest that retaliatory air strikes have killed
over 120 militants in FATA. Since air strikes are blunt weapons, only a few
were probably militants, while the rest were collateral damage --- relatives, even
children, and little fish who were with the wrong person, in the wrong place,
at the wrong time. Islamabad has resumed executing “terrorists” on death row, with
six having already been hanged and some 55 in the queue. It has emerged,
however, that several of those are violent criminals, not terrorists.

Pakistani commentator Pervez
Hoodbhoy argues that the killing of 132 children will hardly shake Pakistan’s conscience.
He notes: “nothing changed after Lakki Marwat when 105 spectators of a
volleyball match were killed by a suicide bomber in a pickup truck. Or, when 96
Hazaras in a snooker club died in a double suicide attack. The 127 dead in the
All Saints Church bombing in Peshawar, or the 90 Ahmadis killed while in
prayer, are now dry statistics. In 2012, men in military uniforms stopped four
buses bound from Rawalpindi to Gilgit, demanding that all 117 persons alight
and show their national identification cards. Those with typical Shia names,
like Abbas and Jafri, were separated. Minutes later corpses lay on the ground.”

Indian scepticism is also stoked
by numerous broken pledges of action. General Pervez Musharraf promised action after
India mobilised its military in response to the December 2001 parliament attack.
In a widely reported speech on August 14, 2012, General Ashfaq Kayani announced,
“the war against extremism and terrorism is not only the army’s war, but that
of the whole nation”. Nothing came of that either.

What will it take to force a crack
down on Punjab-based radical groups like the LeT? Pakistani columnist, Cyril
Almeida, recounts that previous army chief General Ashfaq Kayani was asked in a
closed-door meeting with security experts why Punjab-based terror groups were
being spared, even though the Pakistan Army knew that the fight in FATA could
not be won without targeting them. Kayani’s response: that would fracture the
Pakistan Army and he would not allow that on his watch.

Even so, New Delhi must be alert
for signs of change in Pakistan; the associated political difficulty would
force change to be slow and stealthy. Note should be taken of the immediate
re-arrest of LeT operations chief and alleged 26/11 mastermind, Zaki-ur-Rehman
Lakhvi, after a court granted him bail. Islamabad’s attitude towards Hafiz
Saeed must be similarly monitored. Earlier this month, two special trains from
Karachi and Hyderabad conveyed his followers to a two-day congregation in
Lahore. Any visible reduction of this government patronage would be a sure sign
of change.

On Sunday, an “anti-terrorism
working group”, constituted after the Peshawar attack, has finalised
recommendations to strengthen Islamabad’s counter-terror mechanisms. These will
now be reviewed by an All-Party Conference and the National Security Council,
and might indicate changing attitudes.

Can Pakistan’s tiny (but
courageous) civil society induce the government to act? Last week they staged a
vocal protest outside Islamabad’s infamous Lal Masjid, branding its chief
cleric, Maulana Abdul Aziz, a “Taliban apologist” for refusing to condemn the
Peshawar attack. It would be recalled that the heroic preacher had dressed as a
woman to flee the Pakistan Army’s assault on the Lal Masjid in 2007 --- a
tactic emulated in 2011 by Baba Ramdev to escape a police crackdown in New
Delhi. This time, the Islamabad police quickly broke up the protest. Reform: 0;
Status quo: 1.